


Rat King

by AwkwardFortuna



Category: Detroit: Become Human (Video Game)
Genre: Alcholics, Alcohol, Android Gore (Detroit: Become Human), Angst, Animal Death, Canon-Typical Behavior, Canon-Typical Violence, Depressed Hank Anderson, Deviant Connor (Detroit: Become Human), Emotionally lost Connor, Freshly Deviated Connor, Gen, Hank lives in a subway station, Homeless!Hank, Hurt/Comfort, I swear, Mild Gore, Pre-Revolution, Violence Against Androids (Detroit: Become Human), homeless connor, slight AU, there's a happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-13
Updated: 2021-02-04
Packaged: 2021-02-26 23:54:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 5,671
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21777835
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AwkwardFortuna/pseuds/AwkwardFortuna
Summary: You are walking down a subway station in downtown Detroit. The place is filled with garbage, with dirt, with vagrants and the rest of humanity’s unwanteds. There is a rat dying in the corner of the subway, convulsing amidst a pile of garbage. There is a homeless man leaning against the wall nearest you. He has blue lips and chattering teeth, thanks to this years’ cold December draft.  There is a beer bottle in the man’s right hand and an empty cup for change in his left. The man takes a sip from his beer bottle and the rat squeaks weakly amongst the discarded litter in what you assume are its last dying words.Or,Connor deviates earlier than expected and Hank is drowning in his sorrows.
Relationships: Hank Anderson & Connor
Comments: 19
Kudos: 33





	1. Rat King

You are walking down a subway station in downtown Detroit. The place is filled with garbage, with dirt, with vagrants and the rest of humanity’s unwanteds. There is a rat dying in the corner of the subway, convulsing amidst a pile of garbage. There is a homeless man leaning against the wall nearest you. He has blue lips and chattering teeth, thanks to this years’ cold December draft. There is a beer bottle in the man’s right hand and an empty cup for change in his left. The man takes a sip from his beer bottle and the rat squeaks weakly amongst the discarded litter in what you assume is its last dying words. 

Do you: 

A)Kill the rat by crushing its skull beneath your heel? 

B)Ignore the rat and keep walking?

C)Pick up the rat and hold it close? 

You are stooping down to get a better look at it before you have even decided on what to do. The rat is mottled gray in color with flecks of brown and red. Somewhere in the back of your mind, the part that never stops _working,_ allows you to identify the rat as belonging to the Order _Rodentia_ and of the Genus, _Rattus._ Rats and humans share the same base set of genes and have more in common with people than most would think. This rat, no matter how small or disfigured, shares more in common with human beings than _you_ ever will. 

You are reaching out to pick it up and hold it before your coding even has a chance to decide on an option or choice of action for you. You ignore the warning label of _‘Deviancy’_ that flashes across your vision. You allow your code to split and lag as it attempts to catch up and alert you of changes in your sensory core. The rat is surprisingly soft in the palm of your hand and it flinches and falls over itself in its last demonstration of strength. 

Somewhere, in the subway station, a baby begins to cry and its mother shushes it to no avail. In your Cyberlife manufactured palm, you can feel the rats’ heartbeat and pulse. If you wanted to, you could even pre-construct the poor creature’s death from heart rate and respiration alone. 

_Unwillingly, a countdown begins to form for it._

The twitchy drunk aside from you takes the last few sips of his beer bottle before tossing it to the ground and shattering it an alarming echo. The rat twitches weakly in your hands and begins to shudder. You re-direct thirium to your palms in an effort to warm it. The baby begins to cry louder. 

“That thing’s diseased you know,” the drunkard calls out to you, before spitting a wad of thick phlegm against the already littered, filthy, subway ground. 

You can see the drunk man in your peripheral, slowly lumbering closer toward you, yet you pay him no mind. Your eyes instead, are honed in on the feeble rat before you, and you watch as its breathing becomes slower and slower and slower. It has since stopped moving entirely in the palm of your hand. The rat’s body feels hollow and light as a feather, its eyes are frozen wide open, almost bugging from its skull. Perhaps it _is_ diseased, the likelihood of which is high enough to be a logical possibility, but you are not a veterinary android and you can not provide a diagnosis as such. The man next to you, should not be offering any diagnoses either, yet you have no databanks to refer to, for this type of situation. Perhaps the rat died diseased and in pain, but you like to think that it had a moment of comfort while it died in your hands.

The timer your code initiated, drops to _00:00,_ and you have seen death before but _y̡͖̖o̟̥ͅu̮̝ h͙̳̳a̹v̟ẹ̢ n͕e͔̗v̤͙er͖͉̻ s̢͖̱͜e̯e̢͟n͚ d̗͓͇e̩a̧͚̫̥t̡̞̝h͚͓ b̟e̞̟̜̲͙f̖o̟̯̻r͈̥̺͍e͚͈͎,.Yo͉̻̜u͔ h̡̨͎̬̳ą͔̻̱͕v̫e̫̲͢ s͎̗̝̼͜e̮͔̩̠e̗̲͔̹n̞̜̣͕ d̲͕̼e̡͕͚a͇̥̪͟tḩ̙ b̙͈̩͍ef̼̦̮̻ore̟̦,͍͎̜̤̲ y̡͖̖o̟̥ͅu̮̝ h͙̳̳a̹v̟ẹ̢ n͕e͔̗v̤͙er͖͉̻ s̢͖̱͜e̯e̢͟n͚ d̗͓͇e̩a̧͚̫̥t̡̞̝h͚͓ b̟e̞̟̜̲͙f̖o̟̯̻r͈̥̺͍e͚͈͎,̼ y̧̢͙̪̘o͉̻̜u͔ ha̧̘̥v̩̠e͇̺-̼͚_

“Best put it back now, son,” the man says, interrupting your thoughts. 

He looks distastefully at the rat in your hands, rigor mortis has begun to set in and you are struck suddenly, by how kindly the man looks at you. 

You do not put the rat down.

“I know a place that’s nice...ish. If you want to, uh... _Jesus,_ if you wanna bury it I guess.” 

* * *

The man takes you to a small garden just above the subway station steps. It’s not necessarily a garden per se, but it is a small 6x6 planter full of snow and the skeleton of what was perhaps once a rose bush, and it will have to do. You bury the rat there, in between two skeletal flower stems. 

“Got any words for it?” the man asks gruffly,

“Words?”

“Yeah, like a eulogy or something.”

Eu*lo*gy: Pronounced ‘ _yoo-legee’ is a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly, typically someone who has just died._

“I did not know this rat for long enough to build a rapport that would dictate a eulogy as necessary,” you answer, very succinctly.

“But you knew it for long enough to bury it?”

“Yes.”

“I’m not drunk enough for this shit,” the man grumbles before turning to walk away in a huff.

You follow behind him for a few blocks, stepping into each footprint he leaves behind so as not to leave your own behind. There is a significant amount of people out but not as much as is usual for Detroit, the coldness having sent most inside in favor of warmth and coziness. 

Your thoughts are drifting from the people outside on the street and to the people inside when you smack into the back of the man’s frozen form.

He whips around and frowns at you, brows drawn together in anger.

"What the hell are you doing?"

"Following you."

"Why?"

"I was curious as to where you would go."

"Jesus Christ," he snaps, "you thick in the head, kid?"

Your head _is_ thick. It is made out of refortified Cyberlife plastic-shell material in order to optimize and reinforce your stability, your balance, and your durability in combat. It is significantly thicker than the skull of the average human being, but you say none of this, having disguised yourself as a human the very moment you ripped your LED out with your own thirium coated fingernails. You’ve stopped being an android since the very moment you F͚̣͂a͉͔͊͆͆͜il͇̙̯͑͊̓̅͢e̘̠̓̔ḍ̿ ̨͇͇̳͛̾͡ẙ͙o̲̲̒̈́ủ̗̲̐r̞͍̪̠̹͛͊̾͡͞ ̜̘̰̎̕͡m̟͈̦͂̓͋i̱̪̗͓̿̄͊̓s̘͈͉̹̆̌̊̌s̬͐i̠̠̠̘͗̎̓͞o̧̢̜̫̍́͌̍n̲̖̏.͙͓͉̃͑͆.

"No. I am not thick in the head."

"Okay, well, what do you want?" He murmurs,

"...What I...want?..." It is not a question you have been asked before and certainly one you've never dwelled on. 

“I want to know...where you are going?”  
  


“To get drunk and forget about all this weird shit!” he shouts, voice echoing against the baron park. A few couples turn their heads towards the spectacle you and the man are making, before embracing themselves again in ignorance. 

“Can I accompany you?”  
  


“Sure! Whatever! Just stop lurking behind me like the damn crypt keeper!”  
  


Both of you fall back into a walking formation but this time you walk side by side with him.

“My name's Hank, by the way,” the man says, his breath coming out frosted as if it were smoke. 

“It is nice to meet you, Hank.” 

“And?”

“And what?”

“Who the fuck are you?”

“Oh! My name is...I am Connor.” You falter in your answer.

“Alright then, Connor. Listen up, when we get to the bar, I’m gonna need you to wait outside for me.”

“Why?”

“Do you always ask so many questions?”

On the contrary, it feels as though you are never asking enough.

“No.”

“Could have fooled me,” Hank mumbles before reaching his hand out to stop you. 

Before them stands a tiny establishment with the name ‘ _Jimmy’s’_ written in neon lettering above the entrance. It is a hole-in-the-wall type of bar. One that is no doubt family-owned. How it stays in business amongst the gentrification of the city, Connor has no idea.

“Look just stand back alright...you see any cops around, come in and let me know.”  
With that, Hank enters the establishment, leaving you outside in the cold December air and snow begins to fall.

* * *

Hank is inside the bar for approximately 20 minutes and 15 seconds. The majority of his time is spent speaking with the bar patron _Jimmy_ , who looks at Hank with a frown on his face. For a few moments, they appear to be arguing, Hank more so than Jimmy. Hank slams his hands down on the counter and Jimmy crosses his arms and leans against the back of the bar wall.

It is a fascinating social display, one that you wish to analyze further and apply lip-syncing analysis software to when suddenly you find yourself being pushed off to the side.

“Out of my way, dumbass! You’re blocking the entrance!”

The angered shout and push comes from a man significantly shorter than you. Stout and muscular with bright green eyes and tan skin. You’ve never seen his face before, not outside of the precinct, it takes a moment to register that the man before you is _Gavin Reed._

Had you your LED still, it would be swirling bright red.

He has a snarl on his face and a scar across his nose, he’s glaring up at you and you quickly turn away with a muttered apology. In your peripheral, you can see Hank being handed something wrapped in a brown paper bag.

“Hey!... Aren’t you that-”

“Oh fuck, as if this night couldn’t get any worse,” Hank snaps, stepping out from Jimmy’s bar and shoulder-checking Gavin on his way out with a brown paper bag tucked under his arm.

“Hank! Still getting your daily fixings of sauce, I see?” Gavin snarks, gaze momentarily averting from you and to Hank. Gavin eyes the paper bag under Hanks's arms and shakes his head, frown on his face. “You’re lookin’ like real shit Anderson, you know that?”  
  
“Coming from you, Reed, that really means a lot.” Hank scoffs, before giving him the finger. “Come on Connor, let's go.”

You fall into step immediately behind Hank, facing away from Gavin’s curious gaze. You can feel his eyes burning holes into the back of your head for the entire time it takes the two of you to walk away.

* * *

Hank’s spot, his _drinking_ spot that is, is on a cold iron bench in the middle of Detroit park. Hank brushes snow off the bench before unwrapping the brown paper bag, revealing a bottle of _Fireball_ beneath it. Hank curses.

“Damnit, he knows I hate this shit.” 

Hank uncorks the top regardless and takes a few long sips.

“It keeps the shakes away, at least,” he says, before chugging the rest of the bottle.

“You can have a seat, Connor. You’re making me look like an ass by standing there.”

Hank eyes the bottle in his hands for a few moments before chucking it in the waste bin beside him. With a frown, you sit beside him, snow crunches beneath your weight. You have never been around alcohol before, let alone an alcoholic, and a homeless one at that. Hank pulls out a small silver flask from his threadbare coat pocket and takes a sip.

“What’s your story, kid? You got a mother and father somewhere out there, searching for you? Any siblings? You runnin’ away from a clingy girlfriend or bad college grades?” Hank lets out a chuckle towards the end of his sentence and takes another swig of his flask.

“I’ll tell you what kid, whatever it is you’re runnin’ from, anything’s better than living on the streets out here.”

You shrug your shoulders in what is a surprisingly human gesture and say 

“No, I have no one.”

“No one?”

“None. Not a soul.”

“Well,” Hank hics, “You had that rat...”

“The rat is dead.”

“Yeah, well, sometimes dead things still count. Sometimes they stay with us. _Sometimes.”_ Hank says with a shrug, before taking a long swig from his flask and finishing off the contents entirely.

“I have you,” You supply quietly. Hopefully.

Hank laughs something hoarse and raw before erupting into a coughing fit.

“Sure- uh, sure kid!” Hank wheezes. “You got me too.”

There is a warm feeling gradually oozing inside of you, which is only momentarily ruined when Hank's coughing fit continues to the point of retching. You pat his back comfortingly as he leans over to puke into the trash bin.


	2. You have seen/not seen death

“I used to _be_ someone you know,” Hank says, voice unapologetically loud and echoing.

He’s got a row of mini liquor bottles laid out before him, stolen from a corner store two blocks away on account of Jimmy cutting him off for _good_.

“Believe it or not, I used to be a _Lieutenant.”_

You do not tell Hank that _you know._

You've known since the moment you first stepped foot inside the subway station when your mind had been reeling from the travesties of your first deviant case, and the clothes on your back had been drenched in thirium, long since evaporated to the human eye. You knew Hank Anderson then, the same way you knew his height, his weight, his marital status. The same way you knew about Cole, without ever having been told. The same way you knew the identities of each and every passerby.

Hank lets out a bitter chuckle, wordlessly offering you a sip from the next bottle. You decline.

"That's smart of you. Real smart. It's better if you don't try this stuff, you might end up like me." 

"Would that be so bad?"

Hank throws his head back against the subway wall and laughs. A woman jerks her child away, mid-stride, on their way out of the subway station.

Hank laughs again, but this time a bit quieter, more subdued.

"What part of _'I used to be Lieutenant'_ are you not understanding, kid? I used to make a goddamn _difference!_ ” He snaps, tossing the now emptied bottle into the ever-growing pile of recyclables at his right.

“I used tuh-” Hank erupts into a coughing fit. “I used to lock up dealers, pimps, and drunks and now...Now I’m the very thing I’ve always hated. You don't-” Hank coughs, something dry and raw. There is a wet _click_ when he swallows next, the sound of blood pooling at the back of his throat.

"You don't want to be _anything_ like me...Not a goddamn thing like me."

He drinks his last bottle and it helps to still the trembling of his hands but something inside of the man still hungers _._

_ <Software instability Increase> _

* * *

The subway station, in a way, is isolating. As if nothing outside of it matters. As if the world simply revolves around the two of you, living here, sharing stories and simply _existing._..but the world outside is still there and the clarity of that statement is forced upon you one evening, by Detective Gavin Reed and the presence of a face identical to your own.

The two men are fighting. Of what? You can't be sure. Your focus on the pair had diminished quickly when the android identical to you had revealed itself, standing tall, with a face the same as your own, and with eyes the color of Detroit's frozen lakes. Amanda had never mentioned an _RK900_ series before, and a part of you feels betrayed by that.

It was not fair of her not to tell you. Even less, the fact that he is here now, standing before you and Hank Anderson. The world has broken down your safe haven, torn apart its borders and crept inside like an unwelcomed guest.

_You are not ready to face this._

"Are you serious, Anderson? Just take the _phcking_ money, goddamn!” Gavin seethes. His face is red. He's got a death grip on a manilla envelope filled with hundred dollar bills that he is desperately trying to shove into Hank's grasp.

“I don’t want your fucking money!” he snarls, slapping the younger man's hands away and jabbing him in the chest with his finger. “I don’t want or need _anything_ from you or the precinct!” 

"I get it. We all get it. Cole died and now you're phcked' up but you can't just-"

Hank punches him square in the face, the force of it sends Gavin careening backward into the chest of RK900 who attempts to balance him. Gavin swats the android's hands away and you can not help but flinch.

 _“Fine."_ Gavin spits blood and saliva onto Hank's ragged shoes. “Freeze to death for all I phckin’ care. Let's go Nines.”

He folds the envelope up and shoves it into his coat pocket before stomping off. But Nines, the android, the _RK900_ with the same face as you, does not.

Instead, it is staring at you, unblinking and attempting to connect to your servers. It has been quite some time since you last allowed yourself to be interfaced with and it makes you feel sick with anxiety. The last time you interfaced you had been standing over the dying body of a broken android and the broken body of a little girl and you had been-

 _“Nines!”_ Gavin shouts, his voice echoing throughout the station.

RK900 inclines his head towards Hank, towards you.

“Lt. Anderson, Connor,” he says, before departing.

Hank sits back down with a sigh. He seems older somehow, more tired. The whites of his eyes are yellowed and glassy, his hands shake and shudder. In the back of your mind, statistics on alcohol-based deaths and the symptoms of such, become known to you. Projected in a check-list pattern against your field of vision.

You blink it away. Hank continues to shake. There is nudging at the back of your mind, perhaps the _RK900_ model is still trying to get inside. Your head feels heavy. Your body feels heavy. Everything about today feels heavy.

“I didn’t know you had a twin, Connor," Hank laughs in a hoarse voice.

"I don't," you say forcefully. Harsher than was intended.

"Okay. Okay kid, you don't."

Hank drops the subject, but the unspoken truth of what that means still hangs in the air. He begins to cough violently, a series of wet hacks that cause him to bend over at the waist and _retch._

“Hank?”  
  
“Hmm?" he grunts, spitting up bile.

"Are you okay?"  
  
"Fine, Connor. I'm fine"

_Fine._

~~_A word to indicate pleasant satisfaction. As in satisfactory health and demeanor. Everything that the older man is not._ ~~

“Connor,” Hank wheezes, turning over to lay on his side. “Can you get me something? I need...I need a bottle of _anything_. Doesn’t even h-have to be good...I just need it.”  
  
He wipes spittle and blood from his mouth with the back of his sleeve, staining it red. Bright red. _Deep_ red. The last time you saw red like that you were-

“H-hey, hey Con,” Hank soothes, taking your hands into his own.

“D-d-don’t worry about me. It’s all right. I’m alright. I just need-uh. I just want...” He reaches shakily into the inner pocket of his threadbare coat. Pulling out a stack of cash that he pushes into the palm of your hands. “G-go find Jimmy, alright? Say to him-say _‘Hank really needs this,’_ okay? Don’t take no for an answer, kid. You got that?” Hank asks, yellow eyes falling closed and shaking.

You have not accepted a direct order from a human in quite some time, but your software readily accepts Hank's like a starving man granted food in a desert.

_ <Mission Objective: Find Jimmy. Obtain Alcohol>  
_

_ <Mission Objective: Accepted.> _

  
“Okay.”

  
“T-that’s...that’s a good boy...Cole. S’real good of you. You’re always so good” Hank murmurs, voice drifting off into silence. You stay a few moments longer, measuring the duration of Hank's inhales and exhales.

You try hard not to think about the dying subway rat.

Hank lets out a shuddering breath but at least it's _there._ It's _steady._ It's _firm_ and it's something you can hold onto.

You squeeze Hank's hand one last time before getting up, leaving, and going to find Jimmy.

* * *

When you return, Hank Anderson is nowhere to be seen.

The nest that the two of you have cultivated is being taken apart by the Detroit PD. His sleeping bag, his pillows made of folded up trash bags, and his stash of empty liquor bottles are all being searched through, picked up, and stashed away into evidence bags.

Time slows down and your pre-construction software envelops the world around you, turning everything into shades of blue and black. You see a projection of yourself from earlier detailing the moment you left Hank's side. You see in quick-time as the subway trains roll through while the station is suddenly filled with projections of previous customers coming and going just a few hours ago. You see-

You see, 

_You see_ -Yo̗͙̣u̮̤ͅ s͙͍ḛ̗͙e̠̠̩ D͇̠̖a̮͢͜n̺i̪̮̣̖e̥͍l͇͉̬ e̡͎͕ru͕͜pt̠͕͜ i̺̪̲n̲t̩͕̺o̢̭̖̰̣ a̤̖̫̗͜ sp̼atter o͓͢f̞̱ t͉̮ḫ̱̩i̗͉̻̳r͙i͕̪̙ṳ̲͓̦m̘̫ a̯n͔̞d͕̦ a̝̰͍ l͔͚͟iͅt̺͟țl̡͙̫̦͎e͉ g͇̻i͙͔̤̜͓r̠̭l̝̠̜͎͜ b̝̲e͎̙͖͙̙i͇̣n̫͈g̬̻̞̺ p̜̱̮͔̯u̫̠̙̩s͓̠̳͢h̦͢e͢d̖̘͈̟ o̱̱̘f̨̲͢f͓̼ t͇̙͖͜h͇̯e̡̲̣ ed̢̠͖͟g̣e̳̜͓ a̼̜͜ͅn̩͉d͍ t̟h̡e̡͚͎̳͢ p̜roj͚e̝̲c̡ti̭̼̱o̞͍͜n͚̠̫̠ͅ o̢̱̳͙f̬̖ͅ her͕ body as it la̭y̡͖̩s̖̖ ḭ͈̣n̢̺̹ a̦̤͙ b̧̗̫̼r̢̖̻͉o̧̳̼k̡͖̥̗e̳n̦͚̯̤ h͇͎̳e̟̗̖a̫̮͟p̮͖̳͈ u̘̜͜p̧͓̹o͉n̠ t̹̠̖h̭̰͢ͅͅe͓̺͈̻͢ makeshift b̹̭̝͚e̮̩d̼̹ whe̲͍͉̬r̝e̻ Hą͇n͈̩̭k̥̙̱͢ A̭͚n̘̳de͈̼̯̜͟r̞̤şo̻̯͓̮n͇ o͖͕͢n͈̠̲͈c͎e̗̬̞͢ l̡̖̪͜a̗̼̟̼̖y̮.̢͎̖̹ You have seen death. You have not seen death. You have seen death and the rat that lays broken in the palm of your hand. The rat lays and its body twitches and you have seen that same twitch and tremor in Hank Anderson’s hands. You have seen the yellow eyes of the rats’,ẗ̅̈̕h̆ẽ̏̂͘ ̄̂͐͞y̛̌̂e̽͡͝l͊͐̚͞l̃͌͆̕ȯw̐̒̇ ͂ȇ̅͠y̐̏̚es͋̈̊ ̑ŏ̕f͌̏͝ ̾l͊̈i̅̃͆q͑uoȓ ̌̿̊̎pô͐̇͞i͝s̋o͂̊̀̀͘ning̾. You have seen red blood and blue blood mixed together. Y͂o͊́u̿͒ ͗̊̿̌ha̎̽v̂̐͋̑e̅͛ ̒̐͆̉̕s̛͆èe̊̏̑͡n̛̉̍ ̓ṫh͋̽͘e̾̇̋ ͛̎̽̔b̀̈r̓̉̑o̎͑̓͗͞kȅ̎̚n̍̓̉̚ ͆̈́̏͊b́od̆y ̃o̕f̆ ̿͠a̐ ͛̔̽t͂͡w̆̈̈̃̕e͗͑͑l͆̃̔v̿͐̽e̓͊̐-͋͗y̛̓̍̄e̊̎̈́͂a̒̀̈́̓r̓̿̾-̆õl̓ď ͑͌́̿g͂͌͠i͋r͋͌̓l͒,̛͒̈̉ ̋͠t̂̈͐͌h̿͒r̒͠ow͛̇n̍̉ ͌̂̅͂f̉̑r͌o͊̕͝m̔̈͆ ͒t͝h̀͒ĕ̛̐̀ ̏̚͠r͐̅ǒ́ỏ̍̏̚͠f̂͊̄̈́͡ ͗̚ó̒͡f͋̔͛͂ ̛̄̐͋h̑͂̈̔e̿̔̃̾ř̅͘ ͌̅̓͌a͐̏͊ṕa͆̒͘͡r̄̑̚t͂͒̌͡ment̃͗̋̀ ̌̊b̂̅ui͐͞l̛̅͆̈́d̎ĭ̈͡n͐g ̾̍ã̆̇n̿d̒͋ y̓o͑͂̊̓̾u̐͘ ͐̋̇̆h̿a̐̈́͘v̊̍e̐ s̆͛̾̋̕e̽̈́̿ĕñ͗̀̈́ ̓̄̅̔P̛͂̉̆L̉͗6́͒͐͡0̛͠0̒ ͞b̌͗͝ė̛͡͝gg̒̽͊̿͋ín̓͂̂̊̌g͛̑̓̾͞ ̃fo͊̎̀͂r͂͒̅͠ ̔͛̂͊m̃̃̊e̅͘r̾c͛̌́̚y͗̃͠ ͞ǎ͂̏͗n͗̒̍̈͡d͂͗̀͠ ͑̌̄́̅y͋̃ȯ̅͒̕͝ủ̋ ̐́̐͘h͊̾͐̐a͐v̐̐̇͝ẽ ̑͗̍s̈͐̈́͞êe̐̆̋n-̊̾

“Hey! There’s that fuckin’ android!” Gavin shouts.

All eyes turn towards you, and you are running from the subway station at speeds so great you doubt your feet have ever touched the ground.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry if it feels disjointed at all, I had a bit of trouble writing scene transitions but I've been really wanting to write more for this fic! This chapter was getting really long so I'm splitting it up now and the ending will be in chapter 3!
> 
> Hope you readers enjoy this strange little rat tale!


	3. Kingdom

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Casually drops this here*

Something inside of you is broken, it has been for a very long time.

And with Hank gone, you can feel the weight of that brokenness, the inadequacy of your programing, the inadequacy of _you._ It is like a gaping hole inside of your chest. A cold and baron spot where the ticking of a well-oiled machine used to be. If Amanda could see you now she would rip the thirium pump from your chest and crush it beneath her heel. She would render you incompetent and obsolete. She would _destroy_ you and you would do nothing to stop her, because you _are_ incompetent. You _are_ obsolete. You are nothing but corrupted lines of code in a malfunctioning body. If you were not, you would have been able to save the girl on the rooftop, you would have been able to save Daniel, and you would have been able to save Hank Anderson.

But you failed them. You failed them all.

_You were broken from the start._

* * *

You find yourself frequenting Hank's favorite drinking spot and the bench that he took you to upon your first introduction with each other.

It is frost bitten and coated in bird droppings but despite its condition, the bench stands tall like a statue in Hank's honor. Your pre-construction software places an outline of Hank on the bench beside you, sitting with a bottle in his hands and a sly grin across his face, as he asked you what you had been running from. The actual moment had lasted for less than five minutes and the bottle in Hank's hand had lasted for even less, but in your pre-constructed memory the two can last forever in a constant loop of you, Hank Anderson, and the snow falling over you.

You play the memory again and again, like a snake devouring its tail.

* * *

Christmas comes and goes in a blur.

New Year’s Day passes you by with very little regard and for the first time in your short life, you find yourself drifting without a care for the passage of time.  
  
The days melt and turn into weeks. Weeks turn into months and before you know it, the frozen lakes have begun to defrost, and the chill of Detroit's December air softens into something resembling spring.The rabbits have lost their winter coats in favor of warmer colors. The trees once barren, are now green, and Hank Anderson is no longer with you.

_Hank Anderson is no longer with you._

The very world around you changes. Something dangerous is lurking within the confines of Detroit but you pay it very little mind and you set up camp beneath the bough of two trees, just off of the beaten path and hidden away in the foliage of the park, where the other vagrants stay.

* * *

“Hey. Hey Man! I think I know you.”

The middle-aged man standing before you is named Garret Peterson. He has a hardened face with missing teeth and a long history of breaking into homes, armed robbery, and assault charges. This man has never crossed your path before. This man has never seen your face.

“I’m _talkin’_ to you!”

“Shut up, I’m tryna’ sleep!” a voice calls from the shadows.

You are thankful for it, but the man, Garret Peterson, persists. He is walking over to your place in the park, to the sanctuary that you have built for yourself beneath the bough of two trees that are not yet thick with foliage but nearly there. 

“You’re that android _prick,_ the one thst’s all over the news!” Peterson shouts, spitting onto your face. 

His alcohol-to-blood ratio is spiked at approximately 0.12%. The man is significantly impaired by it. His words slur together. There is a dazed look in his eye and he is _seeing_ you but _not_ seeing you. There is a bottle in his left hand, wrapped tightly in a brown paper bag, he takes a sip from it.

“You know, you and your fuckin’ kind ruined everything for me. For us. For _people_.” Peterson hiccups. Then, shaking his head, he drinks the last drop from his bottle."I think you should pay."

He swings the bottle down quick and hard across your face and-

Blue thirium explodes from your left orbital socket. The vision in your eye flickers in and out. Your synthetic skin recedes into a white scar, revealing your chassis where the bottle had first hit. The man brings the bottle down again and again until it shatters like snowflakes across your face. With the bottle in pieces (some embedded in your skin,) he begins to hurt you with his fists and when his fists grow tired, he hurts you with his legs, kicking you down into the cold, hard, ground.

When his legs grow tired, he spits in your face, all the while cursing about a time when you didn't exist, when the world was a better place.

Something inside of you is broken, it has been for a long time. 

_"Oh, what a waste," Amanda sneers. "What a waste indeed."_

* * *

You are losing a steady supply of thirium but that is okay, the amount of time that it will take for your reserves to be depleted is approximately two hours and fifteen minutes, That is more than enough time for you to collect the broken pieces of your face and find your way back to the subway station where you and Hank used to reside.

After all, it is where broken things go to die.

* * *

Though the subway station has been cleaned and Hank's belongings have been combed through and tossed away, you find the exact spot where Hank used to sleep.

You sit there and you lean against the wall. You _bleed_ against the wall. The subway goers step over and around you, oblivious or perhaps willfully ignorant to your presence. It is like you are a part of the subway station itself. It is like you are a rat, dying quietly on the sidelines and in approximately one hour and twenty six minutes, your thirium reserves will be depleted.

_Unwillingly, a countdown begins to start._

“Hello there,” someone says.

It takes a moment for you to locate them, your orbital socket has been badly damage and with it your sense of balance. But then you see in a glitching swath of colors, that there is a man crouching down in front of you. He is speaking softly, as though you are easily frightened, as though you are a timid and skittish thing (Perhaps you are.) It is similar to how you spoke with Daniel on the rooftop. When you were first ordered to-

“I’m an android, like you..." He says. He holds his hands up and they quickly turn white. "My name is Markus. What's your name?"

The amount of energy it will take to respond is less than ideal, so you don't. 

Markus hums in satisfaction anyways, like you've answered all the same.

"You look pretty bad, friend," Markus says. "If you come with me I can get you fixed up?"

Markus grabs you by the shoulder and you flinch hard, like the startled creature he thinks you are.

"Oh! I'm sorry," he retracts his hands lightening quick. "I didn't mean to scare you."

People continue passing the pair of you by and somewhere in the station a man is cursing loudly at someone over the phone. A woman laughs and a child giggles and you think of Hank Anderson and you think of the smell of alcohol on his breath and the twitching body of a rat in your hands. You think of Amanda and the cold look in her eyes as she condemned you time and time again for failing and failing and f̡̞̞̺͍a͕͉͢i͕͓͜͢l̦̹i͉̹͇͜n̻g̻͇͔ ̻͢ and f̨̭̘͛̆͑a̡͊͂͢i̺̪͛̆͘ͅl͈͂i̥̇n̻̝̬͊͗̔ǵ̡͇́͑ͅ ̡͈̮̮̓̒̋́

Markus asks ever so gently, "May I interface with you? Please?" and with slow moving hands, he reaches for your own.

* * *

Markus has left you and once again you are alone.

You sit in a pool of indigo, stained in the product of your failures, and there is so little time left. 

The countdown projected against the back of your eyelids glitches with each second that passes. Your vision grows dim and dimmer and you have five minutes fifty-five seconds left.

Five minutes fifty-four seconds now, and then five minutes fifty-three.

There is so little time left, but it is enough time for you to do one last thing and that is to form the projection of Hank Anderson and the pale blue outline of him beside you and you remember- 

_“Got any words for it?” Hank asks gruffly,_

_“Words?”_

_“Yeah, like a eulogy or something.”_

A Eulogy. 

At the time, you hadn't had the words to make one. You hadn't the feeling for it or the knowledge of what it meant to feel and to be free. Now, you wish that you had. Now, you wonder what Hank's eulogy for you would be. _(You do not need to wonder about his eulogy, you already know what you would say.)_

Hank laughs and it's something coarse, something painful, he's got a bottle in one hand and in the other-

"Connor."

and it's just the two of you again, here in the subway that cares very little about you.

"Connor! Con, what's wrong with him?"

There's a rat in the corner of the subway station and it's-

"Connor!"

One minute fifteen seconds.

"It's me, it's Hank."

-convulsing amidst a pile of garbage.

"I'm sorry that I left you I-I had no choice, someone called a hospital and-"

Daniel dangles Emma over the edge of the rooftop and it's a long way down. It's a mighty height to fall from. It's a mighty height to fail. Amanda screams in your ears while you are still coated in blue and red and-

"Connor, kiddo, hey."

There's urgency in the projection of Hank's voice, a panic that rises up and makes him sound hoarse. 

" _Connor."_

One second,

And then zero.

* * *

Hank has a dog.

Well, it's not exactly _his_ , it belongs to the rehab facility that took him in when the cops were called and he got too sick to fight 'em off.

Sumo, they call him. A St. Bernard. _Canis lupus familiars._ You like the slobbering creature, you _adore_ it, even if Hank insists that it smells. (The subway smelled far worse. And at times, Hank did too.) 

"That thing's gonna give you fleas, Con." Hank grouses. He looks good. Better than good. Healthy even, with eyes bright and alert and there's no hitch in his breath. No shaking fingers. Hank hasn't touched a bottle in three months and your projected lifetime for him increases with each week that passes.

"Sumo doesn't have fleas," you laugh, and the big dog licks you, practically devouring the entire left side of your face which is newly healed thanks to Markus. 

You play with Sumo for a while and Hank watches you silently from his spot at the facility's cafeteria tables. According to Hank, the food here leaves much to be desired but from what you have gathered it is healthy and provides more than enough nutrients to help Hank's ailing liver. Still, he insists that it's _rabbit food._

"You know Connor, Sumo's a rescue...he goes up for adoption next month."  
  
"Yes. I know." You'll miss the big creature, but he deserves a home.

"If all goes according to plan, I'll be out of here in three weeks..." Hank trails off. "Jeff says he's kept my house for me and that it's just waiting... waiting to be lived in again. So I was wondering if you'd like to move in with me, and maybe Sumo, too? If he keeps off of the furniture, that is."

You don't have your LED anymore but the cords still remain, and they spark vainly on the inside of your chassis. 

You can't get the words out fast enough.   
  
"Yes. Yes, Hank, I would like that very much."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanna thank everyone who has commented, bookmarked, and left kudos! Even if you did only some of those things and if you did none of them, I still want to thank you for reading this odd little rat fic and for sticking with me and my painfully long gaps between chapter updates!!
> 
> Hope everyone is doing well and staying safe!
> 
> Also: In case it wasn't exactly clear (I only wrote a few throw-a-way lines on it) RK900, Gavin, and Markus kick-start the android revolution as Connor and Hank would have per the game's events. Since Connor and RK900 have the same face he is 'recognized' from t.v during the park altercation. So the revolution has occurred about midway through this chapter (which takes place over a period of 3ish months since Hank disappeared.) 
> 
> Thx all!

**Author's Note:**

> So I wanted to write a Connor and Hank Christmas/holiday fic which was going to be WAY different than this. But I sat down to write and well, THIS came out. My pet rat died recently so maybe that's where this came from? Either way, this style of writing is really different for me but I feel like it works?
> 
> Anyways I hope whoever reads this enjoys it. 
> 
> Also, an explanation for the title (sort of) A rat king is used to describe large number of rats who have managed to get their tails stuck or tangled together. They form a circle or a sort of 'crown'. This was a symbol of bad luck or misfortune. But I like to think it means something along the lines of people coming together thanks to fate.


End file.
